Here is the next of the moose hunt stories.

Moose Hunt, Horton style
Chapter two


We were hunting moose down on the lower Endicott River about forty miles south of Haines Alaska. The guilty parties on this endeavor were Uncle Jim, his son Jimmy, Toe Draggin Bill and myself.

The trip down was described in the previous story so I won’t repeat it now, in fact it still scares me just to think about it.

We had taken one nice moose out of the area and were now on the second weekend. Old Toe Draggin Bill had about healed up from the first moose and was out hunting again. As his name might indicate Bill don’t move along very well anymore. He’s about eighty years old and mostly deaf, he gets his name
Cause he can’t lift up the front of his right foot so the toes just drag in the dirt on every step. This leaves funny tracks in the sand and makes him stumble and curse a lot.

Wellsir, on this fine morning Toe Draggin Bill was making his way slowly up the trail to the riverbank. He planned to sit and watch the shoreline and maybe do some moose calling.

As he hobbled, along, dragggin’ and stubbing his toe, cussing and grunting, he wasn’t making very good speed.

Now as it happens, There was a small Bull Moose who had just had the stuffing knocked out of him, nursing his aches and pains, lying just up the right fork of the trail. As Bill went by he turned left toward the river. The moose having better hearing than us humans heard him go by. Now this poor fella thought what he heard was an old cow moose moaning and grunting along the way. He got up from his bed and started out after this cow.

Now picture in your mind this old man gimping along, his rifle over his shoulder, walking stick in hand, and shuffling along making all sorts of gross noises. Then here comes this moose, one horn broke clean off, bruised and battered, his face cut up and one dewclaw torn right off. The bull is limping along, grunting softly, drooling and trying to catch up to what he thinks is a cow moose.

Well fortunately for Ole Bill the moose gimped along just a bit faster than he did. On one of his frequent rest stops Bill sensed something behind him and spun around to look. Now spinning is not a good thing to do if you can’t hardly stand up so while he is teetering and groping around with his stick he sees this moose sixty feet behind him.

The moose stops dead and thinks to himself, “my god what an ugly woman, but the vanquished can’t be choosy”. He takes another step forward and puts on his most winning smile.

Bill finally catches his balance and throws his rifle to the ground while bringing his walking stick to his shoulder. This moose must have been nearsighted in addition to all his other problems ‘cause he took another step closer.

Bill realizes that there is no trigger on his stick, (bright guy huh) throws it down and bends over for his rifle. The moose must have figured this was an invitation so he took a couple more steps forward.

As Bill hooked his toe on a root and crashed to the ground the moose finally started to get the idea that all was not right in the universe. He got this real surprised look on his face and started to back up.

Finally Ole Toe Draggin Bill has his rifle in hand, he rolls to a sitting position and fires one off. I think that bull had decided that he must have had bad karma or something, the oldest, deafest, most crippled old hunter in the woods who could never have caught him otherwise had just ended his days.

Now Bill likes to build guns and has an inclination to shoot big ones, At this time he is shooting a 500 Nitro express built on a Martini frame. This thing is pretty nearly as deadly on one end as it is on the other. Shot from a bench it is bad but sitting flat on your butt it was awful. The recoil knocked Bill out cold.
Young Jim and I had been hunting in a big muskeg a half mile or so away when we heard the shot. Bill’s canon was distinctive so we knew who it was. KABOOOOM “Yikes what was that” Jimmy said. “Must be Bill, he went toward the river this morning” I replied. We took off trotting down the trail to see what had happened.

Imagine the scene as we came on it. Lying dead in the trail is this poor beat up moose, He’s stone dead with the oddest look on his face. Down the trail about forty feet is Bill, lying there flat on his back with one set of toes pointed up and one set saggin’ toward the ground. For all appearances as dead as the moose.

“Oh gosh, Oh gosh, this looks bad,” Jimmy said. “Is he daid”? “I don’t know but he don’t look real chipper to me” I replied. We started to discuss how to get Bill’s body out of the woods and how to salvage the meat, (the moose’s meat not Bill’s)

“You two idjits caint cut me up I ain’t daid” said the corpse. “The moose just talked to me” whispered Jimmy in a frightened voice. “That warn’t the moose you dolt that was Toe Draggin Bill! How ya doing Bill” I exclaimed.

“I’m OK as long as you don’t start butcherin’ on me” he peevishly said. “Did I get that moose” I leaned over and pulled Bill to his feet, “There he is right where he fell” I told him. “Good that’s just how I planned it all, don’t just stand there get him dressed out and hauled to camp”

“Alright but we’ll have to use the trailer and harness agin and I don’t want to have to stand around so long to get unharnessed and put up this time. Jimmy I’ll start on the moose if you’ll go get the wagon and Big Jim”

We got the moose to camp and in the morning Bill and I flew home. I heard Bill mumbling prayers and incantations while I did the preflight and run-up. I wonder why it is that most folks only fly with me one time. Anyway I made a good takeoff, flew home made a perfect one, two, three point landing. (That’s left main screeching on, then right main howling and then the tail bouncing down) went home and got cleaned up.

After a few hours I figured to be a good guy and went out to the boat ramp to meet Jim and Jimmy. They were a bit slow so I waited for a while. I had the trailer hitched up and figured to just back it in and they could load right up.

I spotted them as they rounded the point into the cove, they were loaded heavy and not making very good speed. Suddenly the engine quit, I saw them moving around on the boat changing fuel tanks and then the engine started up again. Jim had been driving real careful and everything was OK until he put the boat back into gear without checking to see about the waves. As soon as the overloaded boat lurched forward it hit the face of the next wave and went right into it.

I could see frantic movements and hear faint yelling, I saw Jimmy cut the top off one of my best fuel jugs and start bailing water. He looked like a fireboat spraying water thirty feet in the air. The boat wallowed out of sight behind some rocks. I was just about to leave to look for another boat when they reappeared and came on in. I backed the trailer into the water and Jim slid the boat right on. When I pulled the trailer out the springs groaned and the sides of the boat sagged outward. Water streamed over the transom in a waterfall. The moose meat, guns and gear floated and sloshed around in sixteen inches of sea water.

Jimmy said “I thought I could bail her out till I looked down and was in two feet of water and then realized the sides of the boat were only sixteen inches high., The foam in the seats kept us from sinking completely so we went onto the beach and bailed out most of the water”.

“Well, shoot I guess that’s about it for this year, let’s get this thing into town and get this meat hung up. At least we won’t have to spend much time cleaning it up huh”.

That turned out to be some of the finest moose I have ever had, the salt water had rinsed it out perfectly and it was just great. Our moose season was over for this year and nobody had to go to the hospital, that by itself made it a success.

I’m pretty sure that that is the last moose Ole Bill will ever shoot but at least he ended his career with a real Big BANG. Happy hunting.

Hey, I was jis wonderin, do you know if Toe Draggin Bill maybe has a twin brother that hangs out down around central Nevada???